Crete Monee School District 201u COTW Meeting 8/6/2024

001e e testing testing 1 two 3 testing t e e e okay I would like to call this meeting to order for cre mon School Board special meeting today is Tuesday August the 6 2024 6:30 p.m. Madame secretary roll call please sure um Mr Al Mr gigos M rup is here Mr swales here miss dumus here Dr Hall here president Brown here let us stand for our Pledge of Allegiance led by Mr seales with our mission state statement led by our board secretary yeah board secretary trust me no more I I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and our mission statement is to engage and Empower our students to positively impact

002their community and future thank you both we have any public comments know Electronics or do you have any vard updates um I do hold on I just wanted to point out some of the I have it written down some of the good things that are happening um in athletics they I know that um I always ask questions about what's going on they have a new weather system on the building that is supposed to be enhanced to keep our athletes safe and our students as a whole um I've been told that we have honest game in place to help with our students um and it's not just for student athletes it actually helps the entire school um so it's for the athletes as well as um the the student body when used um we have the

003creek Bulldogs if you pulled in they're out there um practicing on the on our grounds now try bridging that um I know Dr carab charged the athletic department with trying to bridge the gap with the communities U we we have a pretty good relationship with the up lions and now just rebuilding that that uh relationship with the creek Bulldogs um seems to be going well as they're out there practicing here on a regular basis so and then August 12th everything gets up running for High School athletics and I'm pretty excited about that and to see that we're making progress with this um Athletic Complex is exciting um I think sometimes people don't understand the importance of how Athletics is is a part of education and how it connects and how many people sitting here or

004teaching are actually teachers because of being part of Athletics and it's it'll be exciting to finally be able to host the track meet and play on a uh have one of the top football teams in the state play at a place that is suitable for the talent that we're putting out on the field and have our girls and our our softball and baseball our girls and boys on campus um having our tennis courts updated turning into something that the community can use as well so it's just really exciting and I think it's unfortunate that people miss the mark with that understanding that how many many students actually come to school because they're a part of something and and it is a part of the the overall educational process so I'm excited about the hard work

005that you all um put in um directly and indirectly so thank you that's it thank you Dr Hall on that and it's just kind of fitting that the topic came up during this time of the Olympics and they have shown on a lot of those Olympic participants for the Us and other countries as well I've seen where they have showed the Journey of them being kids through school through college and now being where they are now so it definitely have a impact on learning in many ways Sports is a a component of learning in and of itself so thank you and thank the board for driving the process of having a new sports complex soon to be here on these grounds here on the high school thank you anybody else any further public comments okay

006so we do have under 5A Alpha board updates our Title Nine board training tell yes um as I had in uh informed the board in my newsletter uh there is some mandated board training that needs to be done uh and our attorney group is here tonight to do that for us it is on Title Nine and uh it um this training then will enable you to participate in any hearings subsequent hearings that might result from some of these cases so I'm going to turn this over to you to introduce yourself thank you so my name is Mary Roco I work with pakka gleon who's the firm that works uh with the district um and we've been invited here tonight to do the title 9 training um my colleague Eric gry I was supposed to come

007as well but he wasn't feeling well so it's just me tonight um but I'm happy to give the training um so I have a presentation it's a lot of information um but it it's an overview of all of title 9 the law has just changed as of August 1st so there's a lot of new information um that you may not be aware of um and so I think it's important to kind of know what the new law is what the new expectations are there are some injunctions in different states uh that have been filed on behalf of the different states but Illinois is not affected by that injunction so you may be hearing other states not following the new uh August 1st 2024 rules but as of now there's nothing pending in Illinois that prevents

008us from following the rules and so we're just going to follow the new rules that they are until further notice um okay so this is Title 9 uh okay so what is Title 9 so Title 9 perfect okay thank you so Title 9 this is where it comes from right from the statute it deals with a sexual harassment and it it says no person in the US on the basis of sex shall be excluded from participation in be denied any of the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance so this is straight from the statute this is where it comes from and how it applies to schools um and so it's enforced through either the off the office of civil rights which is under the

009the US Department of Education where um people can complaints saying the district is not following the rules of Title 9 UM and then a complaint gets filed with the office of civil rights and they'll do an investigation to see what what's going on with the district and whether they're complying with the rules or people can file a federal complaint uh in federal court um and bring a lawsuit against the district for moniti damages so that's why it's important to follow and make sure we're doing what we need to be doing under the law um and so as a district you have a lot of responsibilities under Title 9 um one of them is to adopt a non-discrimination policy statement that identifies a title 9 Court Ator district coordinator which you guys have I don't know

010who it is off hand but Okay so we've identified the district coordinator so that you guys have done that um you have to adopt and Implement procedures for receiving and responding to reports of complaints of sex-based harassment which you guys also have a policy um you might want to change it a little bit um a new press policy release has come out recently in the last uh month um what's nice about the new uh Title 9 rules is that there's not a separate grievance process anymore for Title 9 under the new rules you can do it all under that uniform grievance process so if a complaint comes in for sex based harassment or sexual harassment you can just follow your regular grievance procedures and don't have to follow these special title n grievance procedures which

011is good yep are SE and gender defined the same here uh there's two different there's two different uh definitions right now there's two sexual sexual harassment and there's gender-based harassment um and so that's why you see that new term sex-based harassment the new rules and I'm going to go through the definition of it and how to recognize it um but the new rules it's a new term that you guys will have to get used to right because you're used to saying sexual harassment it's now a broader term that encompasses a lot more so when you're going to say sex-based harassment when we talk about Title 9 UM and then you guys have a grievance process to address complaints and then all of course all the various notice Rec recordkeeping and training requirements for title n

012okay so when you get a complaint of uh sexual harassment or sex-based harassment there's going to be two parties they're there's going to be the complainant and the respondant so the complainant is the person who is the alleged victim of the conduct that constit constitute that sex-based harassment and the respondent is the person who is reported to be the perpetrator of the conduct that is the sex based harassment so it's important to remember who the two parties are when we're dealing with title N9 complaints um and so you guys have a formal grievance process to investigate and resolve any complaints of sex-based harassment and then um any complaint is able is enabled to be investigated through the grievance process which which is a change from the rules uh from 2020 under 2020 it was only

013formal complaints that were gone through the grievance process now it's any complaint it kind of has done away with this formal complaint um as Title 9 was before August 1st you would get a formal complaint that was signed by the complainant um and they would write out the allegations write it down and then you would they would say Okay I want to go through the grievance process the formal complaint is now gone any complaint that comes in should be investigated and we'll kind of get into that a little bit but what's nice about the new rules is that it allows for a lot of more of that informal resolution so a lot of hopefully a lot of the complaints can be resolved informally rather than going through that full investigation okay so um we have

014the grievance process you have remember to treat everybody uh equally you want to look at the sex based harassment um and that everybody has an equal opportunity in the process for investigation and decision um and so the process is going to have an investigation a determination of responsibility a basis for appeal um based on the objective evaluation of the evidence um and then there's going to be reasonable time prompt time frames for inclusion so there's no exact amount of days that you need to comply with stuff the new regs just allow for reasonably prompt time frames so that just means under the old RS I think it was 10 days the new regs don't give you those exact time frames but don't take 60 days to complete your investigation or come to a conclusion you

015want to me make sure everything you're doing is reasonably and that you're getting it done as prompt as possible um so the first thing you're going to do when you get the report is meet with the complainant provide them supportive measures um and then you're going to offer them either an informal resolution or if they choose not to go that route you're going to go through the grievance process and when you go through the grievance and I'm going to go through each of these in details this is just a general overview right now the grievance process will be your investigation your determination responsibility and then a possible appeal okay so what's the standard that we're looking at when we're talking about sexual harassment and sex-based harassment so it's whether the district has actual knowledge this

016also changed a little bit of the title 9 sexual harassment or discrimination against an individual in the United States in an education program or activity of the district you have to respond promptly in a way that's not deliberately indifferent and so what this I'm going to go through each of those to kind of like break it down for you but what it means is that if a school has knowledge and it occurs somewhere where the district is in control of of the students or is able to I like to look at the standard of if you can in uh issue discipline procedures for the students uh then you should be looking at whether sex based harassment occurred so if something occurs off campus whether it's through social media and it comes into the school and

017it's impeding uh the education that's could fall under Title 9 um and so you need to take steps to prevent and remedy the sex based harassment and now sex based harassment falls into two categories under the new rules there's sexual harassment which is really has not changed much under the new rules that's the way we all look at it the sex the sexual harassment including sexual violence but then we're also looking at gender based harassment as well now under the new rules which broadens it a lot and a lot of protections for for more people okay so what would be considered a education program of the district so really it's anywhere that the district has control right so locations events or circumstances where the district can exercise control over both the respondent and the where

018the context of the sex based harassment occurs this includes off-campus events um and so the new rules this is a slight change I don't know how relevant this will be to districts but in the old rules if it occurred outside the United States it wasn't uh falling under Title 9 under the new rules even if it occurs outside the United States if the district has control over it then it'll fall under Title 9 I think that really only applies maybe on like those foreign language field trips if students go you know on a foreign language field trip that's sponsored by the district and something happens you would be entitled to to investigate that okay so what is sex based harassment now I've kind of thrown that term out so sex based harassment is when uh

019someone is subject to unwelcome conduct of a demeaning nature um and because of a par person's sex or characteristic that is generally imputed to the person of that sex so these two different forms right you have sexual harassment including sexual violence or gender-based harassment all right so Title 9 defines each of those um so sex sexual harassment is unwanted sexual behavior advances or requests for favors unwelcome verbal visual or physical sexual conduct offensive severe Andor frequent remarks about a person's sex and then harassment of a sexual nature which interferes with an individual's rights to education and participation in a program or activity so that last statement is also a big change in the law as well the old rule rules were um that denies them equal access to the education or program here it's that

020it denies them participation in the education program or access so it's a little bit different and it's it's more individualized so you're not looking at Equity you're looking at are they able to participate in the education program okay so this these are different types of sexual harassment right you have an employee who's discussing their sex life actual or attempted a sexual assault unwelcome touching suggestive comments or J jokes intrusive questions about someone's private life or physical appearance being followed or watched now that's like kind of stalking with stalking you want to make sure that there is some sort of sex-based component to it you know if there is some stocking that could not fall under under Title 9 so you want to make sure that that you make that connection um with Title 9 if

021you're looking at Title 9 stalking under under Title 9 UM excluding a person from training promotions or opportunities based on their sex or gender unwanted invitations for dates uh and then sharing sexually offensive pictures or AI generated deep fakes and then we also talk about sexual violence um these are are standard they're under you know the criminal statute as well but they lay them out in Title 9 so it would be that sexual abuse or battery unwanted sexual conduct that shop stop short of rape or completed rape force or manipulation unwanted sexual activity physical acts where person's incapable of giving consent or it's against a person's will so these examples would be sexual assault rape inappropriate touching phys physical aggressive sexual advances um and then you also want to look at kind of that quid

022proquo sexual harassment um and this is usually uh usually it's a school employee to a student or another employee and it's very broad um it can be implied it can be a single instance there's no requirement of intent when you look at at this kind of sexual harassment it's usually something for something right you come sit on my lap and I'll give you a good grade is a very basic example of that but that's kind of what we're talking about when we do quid pro sexual harassment um and so you when that happens um you're not looking at intent you're not looking at the severity you're just looking at unwelcome conduct and whether they're asking them to do something for something else kind of like a power base between the two parties all right so

023this is the new broader term of gender-based harassment that was not under the old rules so gender-based harassment is unwelcome conduct based on a student's sex harassing conduct based on a student's failure to conform to sex stereotypes so um this would be kind of like making gender related comments about a person's appearing appearance or mannerisms um bullying someone using gender related com cond comments or conducts treating a person badly because they don't fit a stereotypic gender role so this allows for a lot of protections also for that lgbtq Community as well um and so you're going to want to Encompass that and think about Title 9 when you're when you're looking at things of that nature that come up in in your your District um and so gender discrimination is also defined in Title 9

024um so again it talks about discri discrimination or harassment based on one's gender so it could be um you know even females who are pregnant um that's a big big protection as well so um if someone's making comments about someone being pregnant that may fall under title n if someone makes a complaint about it um unfair treatment or attitudes towards an individual based on their gender gender identity discrimination sexist attitudes sex stereotyping um and then there's some examples right gender based bullying derogatory or sexist remarks gender discrimination activities Athletics programs the office or classrooms so I you know with this new broader definition I think you're going to see a lot more complaints come in um and I think that's a concern that a lot of districts have and again we'll talk a little bit

025more about how we can we can move these cases towards informal resolutions so we're not bogged down with this full grievance process of all these claims if they start coming in because there's this has broaden the definition a lot I think for school districts but um I also think it's streamlined the process so I wouldn't be scared that you're going to get a million complaints coming and you have to do 50 million grievance procedures and investigations hopefully we can move forward and get everything resolved as informally as possible um so some T some types of sex based harassment asking intrusive personal questions about a person's sex making inappropriate comments or jokes based on their sex um displaying images or materials that are sexist or misogynistic unwanted expressive attention through phone calls emails letters gifts using

026language that's offensive um you know calling someone a slud a a stud um or continually making offensive comments about women in general okay so not only do you want to um um look at what what's the conduct that's occurring but it also has to create this hostile environment right so you have the sex based harassment occurring and then you're looking at is this cre creating a hostile environment for the complainant right is the respondent doing the sex based harassment creating a hostile environment to make the complaintant uncomfortable um and so Title 9 defines the hostile environment right because you want to look not only is it occurring but is it is it impeding that person from participating in the educational environment in a hostile environment um and so you want to look at the the

027nature of what occurred is it creating an adverse setting is it uh creating an intimidating or offensive conduct or environment so the person is fearful um is it limiting or interfering their ability to participate in or benefit from a program activity or job so that last bullet point is really the main point you're looking at when you're talking about how hostile environment right is it impeding their ability to to participate in the school environment or the district environment whatever that conduct is it has to be impeding their ability to participate so some examples of that would be this bullying abusive intimidating comments offensive comments uh that conditions of a person's work classroom or program environment continual offensive comments uh discriminatory nature sexual nature um again when you're talking about sex-based harassment you don't have to

028look at their intent you're looking at the totality of the circumstances right the expectations of the people uh who are are uh complaining about it or their relationship the location the frequency the gravity of the conduct so you know when when a complaint comes in you want to ask yourself all these qu things right if it's a one-off comment it may be sex based harassment it may require an investigation but you just want to look at the totality of the circumstances were they joking around what did the person apologize and you know this was not something that that's ongoing and causing them not to be able to come to school or not be able to come to work so these are all things you want to ask when you're looking at these complaints and then

029you want to when you're talking about the hostile environment and what happened you're looking at it from the reasonable person standard it's subjectively offensive right so someone may come in and make a complaint and say that they were offended you want to ask yourself if I was standing in that person's shoes would I reasonably be offended as well right because everybody has different perspectives about what's happening and what's going on so when when a complainant comes in you want to take a step back and say is this person reasonably offended by what the person said or did they just meet misread what was happen what happened and can we handle this another way but it's a reasonable person standing in the shoes of the complainant um again it's very fact specific you want to look

030at the circumstances the incidents the parties involved um and you know different people are going to come to different conclusions um and so there's also a severity uh component to this as well not to say that a one-time incident may not um doesn't have to be severe because it can but you want to look at the severity of the incident and what's going on right you look at the age the disability the sex the characteristics of the people complaining um and this is an important part to make it's it's not up to the complainant to to to prove the severity of the conduct right it's the school makes that determination right so the complainant comes in and they complain they tell you what happened it's up to the school to say this I think this

031was severe or this was not severe um and so you have to make that determination again from that reasonable person standard um and then the other standard that it's severe and pervasive are the two kind of standards that go together um so something could be maybe not severe but if it happens over and over over again then it's pervasive and it still warrants that that you know a second look into it what's going on and maybe a a closer look at what's happening with those sex based complaints right um and so maybe a single incident comes in uh and this comes up a lot I think maybe with with School Employees you have someone come in and complain about a school employee it's a one incident but if it's happening you know over a course

032of six months or several years that may cause you to say okay this is starting to look pervasive we've had three complaints now in the course of two years maybe we should look into this and do an investigation as as to Title 9 so you want to make sure you're looking at a pattern of harassment and so this is really important I think when you're looking at that record keeping that you guys are doing as a district um because if if something happens in say one year of employment and then it happens again in year three of employment you may not know or you may not have a record or the person who's doing the investigation May no longer have been here and so you want to make sure you're keeping a record because you

033want to know every time something comes in so you can start to see those patterns especially with students to too right students who come in as freshman year may have one complaint freshman year one junior year and then one senior year now by the third complaint if you don't have good record keeping of it you may not have a record and no and OCR is going to look at that and say it doesn't matter that you guys didn't keep Good Records you should have been on notice that these three times have happened and so therefore we're going to impute you know some sanctions against you for not following through all right so what's unwelcome conduct right it's without the consent of the victim it's subjective um the complainant doesn't want to participate that's pretty much

034what it's unwelcome because they're not participating um and again you want to look at the age the ability of them to participate um and the different cultures of the different people okay so here's some hypotheticals that we can kind of talk about just to give you an idea of how this all plays out in practice right so the first hypothetical is a student who's spreading rumors of a sexual nature through emails texts and social media about a classmate over a number of weeks so this this would likely be sex based harassment but there's some things you want to know right how is it affecting the students in school right if it's just occurring off campus and it's not impeding their ability to come to school they're still getting good grades they're not afraid to come

035to school maybe it's not you know in part of the district's environment and maybe it's not impeding their ability to come to school but you know that that stuff flows into the school into the schools and the districts as you guys well know especially with the discipline Arena social media is is a beast of its own in terms of of how districts handle it so um you know this would this would I think fall under under the District of the duty to investigate at least what's going going on um okay another hypothetical through throughout football season a team member makes sexual advances towards another team member and that player quits the team so pretty straightforward right that would be something that would fall under sex based harassment what about a female teacher is complimenting a

036male student on his new haircut someone comes in and complain maybe not right they come in you would might say okay what's going on I need a little bit more information what if that teacher compliments only that student and it does daily now maybe you start to see a pattern going on right um and then also like if the teacher had been a uh subject of a prior sex based harassment complaint by another student in another year so that's why that recordkeeping is very important right those are things that you would want to know when someone comes in um okay so a male teacher sends female student text messages and buys her gifts for her that her parents believe are inappropriately expensive maybe right depends on what what's going on now the other thing to

037remember too I'm talking about this in terms of Title 9 so some of these things may fall under some of your other board policies and procedures um so there's nothing preventing you if someone comes in with something like this and you say well you know what this is not Title 9 but we're going to investigate under you know our school employee code or even discipline code or bullying code um and so you want to keep that in mind too um because a lot of these things may fall under under some of your other board policies and procedures um but I'm talking about in terms of Title 9 so this may or may not fall under Title 9 um I think you'd have to look into what's going on and it's definitely inappropriate that they're buying

038gifts um you know so you want to see what what they're saying how the person's feeling are they of a sexual nature is did the did the student not want those gifts was it unwelcome um all of those things but that doesn't mean that they can't be uh sanctioned in other ways uh through some of your other policies um an attempt to ostracize a perceived rival a girl starts a rumor that another girl is sexually promiscuous and perform sex acts on boys behind the school so this would fall under the new the new regul um I don't believe this is something that would have fall under the old regs from 2020 but this definitely falls under those new uh August 1st 2024 rule so you should be investigating this under Title 9 as well and

039then this is the last hypothetical you have a a male student in grade nine has many female friends more interested in the Arts than Athletics is repeatedly called quote F homo queer by a group of boys in the school so this would now fall under Title 9 UM and you you have a duty to investigate this under Title 9 you may also do you may do a separate bullying investigation too because to me this would also fall under bullying um so you may have two separate kind of ongoing like parallel investigations going on in terms of bullying and title n and you can even do them at the same time and make different conclusions but you should definitely be looking at Title 9 when it comes to this kind of hypothetical all right so when

040is a district on notice they've changed kind of the standard of this is really important I think for districts too um what is that of conduct that reasonably constitutes sex-based harassment so under the the regs from 2020 the knowledge of sexual harassment did not occur until the district coordinator got that formal complaint in their hands and was made aware of the sex Bas harassment now knowledge is imputed on the district when any employee gets information about anything that's happening up somewhere within your District about sex based harassment so this could be your your school bus drivers your cafeteria workers your you know custodians teachers even students anybody really who works within the district or within the district so I think it's really important that we have to train our staff to know what to look

041for and who where to go and how to tell people to report these complaints because the last thing you want to do is have um someone say you know they had knowledge of it they heard it so and so heard it and they didn't do anything about it they didn't tell anybody and maybe it didn't get to the district coordinator maybe it didn't get to the administration but you're still on notice that it's going on in your District so that's just something to really keep in mind um under the new regs they they have two different uh types of employees they have your confidential and your non-confidential employees so those non-confidential employees is pretty much everybody right that's going to be all those people I just mentioned the school bus drivers the the cafeteria workers

042everybody the confidential employees are those people that are protected under statutes um so that's like your social workers your school psychologists they have they don't have to disclose stuff um when they're talking to students in that kind of therapeutic relationship um and so this is just for notice of a district so if a student goes to say a social worker who um and says you know this happened to me uh I feel I was sexually harassed by a teacher you're not on notice for that title 9 uh investigation or that title n grievance because the the confidential employee has an information the duty of the confidential employee is just to inform the person who's telling them how to remake a report so they can how to make report that incident to someone within the district

043whether it be the district coordinator or administrator and so while they may have other duties under say the DCFS statutes and those kind of reporting duties under Title 9 just because the your confidential employee knows something is happening that doesn't mean the district knows about it that's kind of what this says um it doesn't really change any any of their responsibilities otherwise um so again examples of reasonable knowledge that a district would know when they personally hear or see something they receive a verbal or written report multiple reports together um or a you know a complaint is filed through the grievance process so any person can report sex based harassment it doesn't have to be the complaintant or the victim right any person could say I heard so and so say this to to my

044friend they may not be the person who who was being sexually harassed but if they make a report then you you have a duty to investigate that um again it could be at any time it could be by telephone mail email however they want to report it once you get that information you're on notice that it's happening um again so this this replaces that actual knowledge that's from 2020 and then it's important to keep in mind all these confidentiality rules for student records as well when you're dealing with these Title 9 uh investigations uh even though the complaints come in you still want to keep in mind you you should not be talking about this with other people in the district unless they need to know you should not be giving out names to other

045people unless they need to know so you want to keep all of that student confidentiality uh as much as possible uh when you're deal de with these issues and then under the title n RS now um it's always retaliation has always been prohibited but they really Define it now and they really let you know um what it means to retaliate against someone for title n investigations and so you know you guys have this in your policy the retaliation is prohibited but no District or other person can intimidate intimidate threaten coerce or discriminate against any person for the purpose of interfering with their title n rights um and they identifi they Define retaliation under the new RS you know a strike back in response to another person's act action or accusation Revenge because they filed a

046complaint against a person refusal to promote or Advance a person uh due to a complaint filed and so if you find that there is retaliation going on I I believe your agreement process has it most schools do um they can then be disciplined at that point for retaliation um if you find that they're they're doing something for retaliation purposes so again examples of of retaliation demotion firing unfair treatment uh due to the complaint being filed and so what is deliberate indifference so deliberate indifference this is where a lot of districts get in trouble and where most I believe most of your lawsuits are going to come if from failure to investigate Title 9 or follow follow your procedures and processes right so most complaints that come in that I've seen come into OCR will say

047I complained about sexual harassment or or now sex-based harassment going on I told so and so they didn't do anything they didn't investigate they didn't tell me what was going on they took 90 days or I told them and nothing happened and that's kind of where you get that deliberate indifference and that's most majority of the complaints and so you want to make sure as a district you're not acting deliberately indifferent um and so deliberately deliberate indifference is if the response to the allegation of sex-based harassment is clearly unreasonable in light of the circumstances known um so clearly this comes from the courts so clearly unreasonable is not defined in the regulations but the way you can avoid this this appearance of deliberate indifference is by treating both complaintants and respondents equ right so you

048want to make sure that you give them both an opportunity to be heard that you are looking at in terms of your investigation both sides all the W the witnesses that they present and any opportunity that you give to the respondent you give to the complainant um and that also when the complainant comes in the first thing you should be doing is offering them those supportive measures which I'll get into in a little bit about what supportive measures are but when the complaintant comes in as a district you have to offer them some support so they'll come in they'll make a complaint and the first thing you say is what can we do to help you what would make you feel safe in this environment while we while this investigation is ongoing so that could

049be a you know whatever you guys come up with but usually it's like Counseling Services Social Work Services change in classroom um you know maybe an escort between classes if that's available um and so you want to make sure that's the first thing you're doing because that shows you're not being deliberately indifferent right you're showing you're acting appropriately you're offering them something while you're doing the investigation and then you're treating both the complaintant and the respondent equally the other way you can get in trouble in terms of deliberate indifference is if you discipline a respond it before your investigation is completed you cannot issue any discipline or sanctions before you complete your outcome and make a final determination of a title n grievance so that what does that mean that means you can't issue discipline

050such as suspensions or expulsions you can't um put put someone on extended administrative leave without pay you could put them on leave but make you better make sure that it's with pay while you're doing your investigation because otherwise it can be seen as a sanction or a discipline before you have a final outcome of what happened okay all right so let's talk a little bit about these supportive measures so supportive measures they they must be offered to the complainant they may be offered to the respondent right so like I just said when the complainant comes in the first thing you're going to do is offer them supportive measures um and you're going you're going to let them know um that these are these are confidential to the extent they can be um it's the responsibility

051of the title 9 coordinator to uh coordinate the implementation of the supportive measures um and that they will be ongoing and continuous until the investigation is over again they don't they don't Define all the different supportive measures it's like under the circumstances what's reasonable now what may happen is a complainant may come in and say this is what I think would make me feel safe and supported in the school environment if that that offer of a supportive measure by the complainant is unreasonably burdensome on the school district you do not have to provide it you just have to say why it's unreasonably burdensome right so it might be really burn some on the district to have someone follow a student around for the entire school day right from start to finish because you just don't

052have the staff and and the capacity to do that so you just need to make sure that you document the complaintant asked for this and we denied it because it was unreasonably Burns and we don't have the capacity to offer that do you have any questions or no no okay so that's just something yeah just something to keep in mind um you know if if something just is not feasible for the district because it's just unreasonably burdensome you don't have to be providing it you can provide something else and here's some examples of some supportive measures counseling extension of deadlines modification of work or class schedules uh leave of absence for an employee make sure it's paid increase security monitoring and and whatever other similar measures um they should be age appropriate you know use

053common sense and good judgment consider the needs of the parties so again these are not supportive measures expulsion termination of employment um you can do do those after the grievance process is played out and the and even the appeal is is final then you can you can put in whatever remedies or discipline uh as a result of your entire investigation but before then you should not be doing that um the other thing uh I don't why that slides that there but there can be a removal of a student for as a supportive measure um what if you're going to remove a student as a supportive measure uh it's usually under like a safety plan because the continuation of that student based on the complaint probably is is creates a either real uh safety issue in

054the school environment um if that's something that you guys are considering um it doesn't eliminate their rights under you know Senate Bill 100 or or to have a hearing on the issue so the hearing would basically said this is a complaint that came in we feel why you feel it would be dangerous for them to remain in the school environment and then they have a chance to come and say why they don't think that's true um but it's not a suspension and it's not an expulsion it's not under the discipline it would just be kind of an emergency removal under kind of a safety plan while the investigation is ongoing okay so this part of the training this impartiality training um talks about prejudgment and bias um this is the part of the training that

055will entitle you guys to partake in all of the title n investigations as a board um especially if you're handling appeals so you want to make sure that you know how to be impartial not have prejudgment not have bias so we're going to go over that that role that you would play as a board um you know because when you're making these decisions you want to make sure that you're impartial impartial not prejudgment and and kind of know what your biases are um if you were ever to come you know and have to make a decision a final decision on any of these matters um and so these are the different roles that people can play in terms of the the Title Nine investigation you have your coordinator your investigator your decision maker your appeal

056decision maker and your informal resolution facilitator most likely as a board you will be partaking in the appeal of the decision maker um but you could probably you could play role as a decision maker you know in some in some instances but I would say mo the focus probably is on appe peal decision maker in terms of the board of education so what does it mean to be impartial um being impartial means avoiding prejudgment of the facts that issue avoiding any conflicts of interest and avoiding any bias um so bias could be for against complaintants or respondents generally or it could be for against any of the parties specific to the case that's before you um prejudgment of the facts that issue so what is prejudgment prejudgment means prematurely without sufficient analysis or investigation making

057a judgment right you see the complaintant before you they want to appeal you're reading the complaint and just the allegations and now you've made a decision without even looking at the full investigation or hearing what everybody has to say or reading whatever information is before you um so you you want to avoid assuming something happened based on your own PR preconceived beliefs so this should be you know your belief that se sex stereotyping that males are sexually aggressive and women regret their sexual behavior um that most harassment claims are baseless that the respondant is responsible because of rumors you may have heard about that respondant whether it's employee or student um assuming that because someone doesn't remember what happened um they because they were consuming alcohol at the time that that they're just not credible

058because of that or uh disbelieving someone because they don't remember every detail of something that happened in order so this is a little hypothetical about prejudgment so you have an investigator they make comments about how female students dress inappropriately and asked for attention from male students and staff the female student alleged sex based harassment was wearing a short skirt during the incident issue does this investigator seem impartial I would say yes so you want to make sure that you're not presenting yourself as impartial so what I will say about appeals which may come before the board a lot of the appeals say there the decision maker wasn't wasn't impartial they you know prejudged the facts or they had conflict of interest and didn't recuse themselves so I think it's also important to keep this in

059mind too when you're looking at appeals that come before the board and you're reading your investigations you're kind of looking to see well is were they prejudgment did were they biased did it show or did they go just off the facts that are presented um so make sure you want to keep an open mind you want to hear all the facts you don't want to assume stuff try to avoid your gut reactions um you want to seek out more information right so when you're looking at those investigations to determine if uh there was prejudgment or they're biased did the person stop investigating once they heard the information they wanted to hear or did they hear everything and then come to their conclusion right did they hear everything from the complaintant said I'll talk to the

060respondent but I don't need to talk to any other Witnesses and make a make a a judgment on what happened without hearing all the information um with conflict of interest um this is when a person's private interest might affect or compromise his or her actions decisions or judgments and there's three different types of conflicts of interest there's actual conflict potential conflict and perceived conflict so an actual conflict is you know they actually interfere with the participants ability to act impartially what kind of relationship do you have with the parties and your duties a potential conflict is it could interfere with a person's ability to act impartially um but it may not necessarily but it it could and then perceived is there may not be a a actual conflict but because of the relationship between everybody

061it could be perceived as one so here are some examples right you're if you're invest the investigator or board member is related to the complainant then you may have a conflict interest and you may have to recuse yourself from participating in that in that investigation or appeal um if you have an outside business relationship with a respondent again this may be a conflict of interest um if you're close family friends or or maybe you are you know in the same ba baseball team as some of the people who are coming before you with the with the title nine you may want to rec reuse yourself just because it's a potential conflict of interest and may give that appearance of one um so when a conflict of interest when does that disqualify a person from partaking

062in this grievance process right it's a re again reasonable person standard the law likes to use this reasonable person um what a reasonable person believe based on the facts that issue that the participant's personal interest uh prevents them from acting impartially right how do you think people will react to your participation how would you react to to your participation if someone had the same conflict so just kind of keep that in mind if it were to come up it's better to recuse yourself and say I'm not going to part I'm not going to participate in this part or somebody should take this over um if there's any sort of conflict of interest because it just you'll just avoid trouble down the line all right so what's bias so bias is favorable or unfavorable inclination or

063perceived opinion it could be General it could be specific you could be bi biased against a particular complaintant or respondent um or you could be just have a general you know I don't like complainants when they make sex based harassment claims they all they all are just terrible people um you know so you want to kind of it's really hard to prove that someone has a bias but you want to kind of just keep that check right you know it could be very implicit so when you're you're looking at these these cases and the facts and what comes before you you know just make sure that you you know what you're thinking right like think about your attitudes and beliefs and stereotypes it may be unconscious um but you just want to be cognizant of

064what you're thinking and feeling and why you're thinking and feeling and so a way to combat this is make sure you're listening to all the opinions of everybody um and that any outcome that you make is based on the facts right any any decision you make there's facts to back it up based whatever is in the investigation report whatever in the appeal before you um are you making this based on the facts presented for you and not some some bias that you may have unconsciously um again so for General bias maybe you had a sibling that was accused of sex based harassment and now you kind of think that most complainants make things up um specific bias maybe you had given uh the employee a bad evaluation or they had been before the board before

065and you kind of know their behavior you want to make sure that you're not showing that bias um or or making your decision based on bias and then of course you want to be impartial right so that just means each party has the opportunity to present evidence so this is where a lot of the appeals come to they say they they didn't listen to everything they didn't look at all the evidence and so when you're looking at whether something was done impartially did both sides have an equal opportunity to present all the information um was the respondent treated innocent until the until the actual decision was made um and it's important to remember the district is not an advocate for either side the role of the district is to make a decision about the complaint

066whether or not it falls under Title 9 so you're not advocating for the complaintant you're not advocating for the respondent um you may like one more than the other but that's not your role Your Role is to come to a conclusion about about whether it happened um and then what remedies or discipline can be imposed if it happened or if it should be dismissed because you couldn't come to a conclusion okay so informal resolution is hopefully how this is all going to play out before it even gets to the board for appeal but the regulations now allow for informal resolution of almost all complaints unless it's a student employee complaint if if there's a complaint that involves a student and employee it has to go through the grievance process you can't do in formal resolution

067and that's that's kind of obvious right why they wrote it that way there's a power struggle um there's there's an interest in in the district kind of you know making those full investigation of those kind of complaints that come that come but if you have student to student complaints employee employee complaints all those complaints now can be done informally um so informal resolution is kind of like mediation what you're going to have you have a person who is the informal uh moderator that could be anybody who's done this training um I know a lot of the Administration staff has done some of the training as well um and so they sit down with the two parties and they kind of come up with with what the parties agree to to resolve the complaint so that

068there's not a full investigation that happens it can happen at any point in the in this process um before the decision is made right so if if they say no we don't want to do informal resolution and you start the investigation and then they say we'd like to do informal resolution you can stop your investigation and do the informal resolution um what's nice about the informal resolution you don't have to start the investigation process until they've denied the informal resolution right um they can't be forced to do the informal resolution but you have to offer it to them and you can kind of kind of say you know it's a chance for you guys to sit down together and come up with what whatever you agree to um and so then you're not bogged down

069with this investigation and the decision and all the other things that come with that um so it's in L with the formal grievance process uh okay so you're required to give notice uh okay so here's here's the role the title 9 coordinator just so the the board know kind of knows what their role is um so one person has to be uh designated as the title 9 coordinator um the board has to let everybody know parents students employees unions who that person is write their name title address email telephone number that's in your board policies I think it's in the handbooks so you guys have have done that um but all that information has to be displayed in uh for everybody to see on the district's website the handbooks uh and anybody an applicant for

070employe employment you say we have done that yes it is in your handbook I believe is it so yeah so you guys are good on that in the stud handbook okay yeah um but you might you know you can double check but as far as I know you guys are complying with that everybody knows knows who it is it's the role of the district coordinator to oversee um they don't have to do the investigation and the decision- making um but they kind of you know delegate down who's going to investigate the complaints who's going to make the decision um and then the appeal process um so a dis a complaint of Title 9 must be dismissed um and so if the allegation is not constitute sex based harassment so we kind of talked about a

071little bit sometimes there may be a parent may come in and say this happened um maybe it's not sex based harassment maybe it's just bullying so if they come in and say I have this title n complaint and they are telling you that it's sex based harassment and you're like okay that doesn't fall under there um then you can dismiss the complaint um but you want to give them notice we're dismissing this on tit on line we're going to investigate under bullying or if you just think there's nothing to investigate you want to make sure you just tell them we're just missing this because it doesn't constitute sex based harassment under the statute and the definitions and therefore we're not going to proceed but you want to give them notice this is where that deliberate

072indifference comes in too if you're dismissing a complaint for for that reason you have to give them notice that you're dismissing it and why um the other reason it must be dismissed is if it didn't occur in the district's education program activity right so they may come in and say you know my my daughter was you know sexually harassed at the McDonald's up the street right and but it's not affecting her in the school environment right or maybe I've had some cases where um some schools have called me over the summer students are being sexually arrested over social media over the summer well there's nothing going on in the school and it's not in the school environment yet and so you know that complaint can be dismissed because it's not happening in the district's education

073program activity now when school starts if it falls in here and some for some reason kids are talking about it the student refuses to come to school or things start popping up um you know they certainly can reopen that and look at it again but um if it's not occurring in the district District's education program activity um if the respondent doesn't go here you know is not is not a student in the district if the employee uh you know doesn't work here anymore you know those are kind of reasons that you would dismiss a complaint um so you may dismiss a complaint again uh if if the complaintant says they want to withdraw their complaint right so you hear you have an allegation of sex based harassment they come forward and they say you know

074what I don't want to go forward with this anymore um I wish to withdraw my complaint then you don't have to go through the grievance process but you want to make sure you get that in writing and let them know that this this this complaint is going to be dismissed um again if the respondent is no longer enrolled or employed with with the district you can just miss your complaint uh you know there may be certain circumstances so sometimes employees especially will resign before the the investigation is completed um if they resign you can dismiss their complaint um there may be some instances where you want to just finish up that investigation have it on record but most of the time um you know it's up to the district but you don't have to dismiss

075it but you can dismiss the complaint just um and not continue on with the investigation um and then if there's EV if there's circumstances that prevent you from Gathering evidence to reach a sufficient determination regarding the complaint you can also dismiss the complaint and so that may happen where you know sometimes there's a an ongoing police case or court case going on as well and so the parties each get attorneys and they didn't say you know what we're not talking to the school about this because there's ongoing Court matters or police matters and so the district can't do any of their investigation then you you you are able to dismiss the complaint if you're not able to get the information to do your investigation but again you want to make sure you're making you're making

076a record of this and everybody's on notice that it's been dismissed and why and so when you dismiss you want to send notice to both the complaintant and respondent simultaneously and give reasons for the dismissal and so it's important this remember when it's dismissed the part either party can appeal that dismissal so you may choose to dismiss a case and they may they they have a right to appeal that dismissal um and so you know if if for some reason they appeal you just want to look at why it was appealed and and what was going on again the dismissal from Title 9 does not mean dismiss from the entire District Board of policies uh conducts and policies so make sure you're following that uniform grievance procedure if there's other policies that maybe they can

077uh fall under whether it be your discipline code or your bullying policies or your your code of conduct by all means just because you're dismissing a sex based harassment claim under tit 9 doesn't mean you can't use any some of those other procedures that are in your pocket I talked about this already emergency removal of a student as a supportive measure um again you're doing a risk analysis uh to see if there's an immediate threat to to health or safety of students by having that student remain in school um okay so this is I'm almost done so we're going talk about the appeal right so once the decision is made from from the district you've done your investigation you've talked to all the witnesses um each side has an opportunity to review all the evidence

078then you make a decision right um and so the district will say yes this constitutes sex based harassment um for these reasons these allegations uh based on the definition and our investigation and we're issuing these sanctions or these remedies um once you have that decision the parties can appeal that decision and say I agree or disagree with it but there's very specific basis for how why they appeal right um and so they can appeal either dismissal of a formal complaint or uh the decision the final outcome of the decision once you've gone through the grievance process it could be for a procedural irregularity that affected the outcome so um you didn't give them whatever their due process rights are you didn't talk to all the witnesses uh you you treated them didn't treat them impartially

079um you know whatever it is for a procedural irregular irregularity um whether there's new evidence that was not reasonbly available at the time of the termination of dismissal that affected the outcome so if there's some new evidence uh that that comes to light that could be a basis for appeal as well um and then you know the title n coordinator investigator decision maker anybody involved in the process had a conflict of interest or bias that affected the outcome so that's why it's important with those prejudgment bias and conflict of interests even if there if you if it appears to be one it's better to recuse yourself so that you don't get that appeal um there's not you're not leaving it that open for them to come in and appeal the decision um and then once

080when when the parties appeal you have to uh each party can appeal equally right um and so the the appeal decision maker can't be the same person who does the investigation and can't be the or or a decision um so if you have whoever does the investigation and makes the decision cannot be the appeal decision maker they have to be unbiased can't have a conflict of interest um and then so once the decision is made you notify the parties in writing uh that they have the ability to appeal that's that comes out in their decision and then they must notify the school in writing when the appeal is filed right uh I believe it's 10 days you have to look at your grievance procedure most schools give 10 days to allow to file an appeal

081of a decision um and so if they file it within those 10 days you'll get something in writing um when they when the appeal comes to the district both parties are given a reasonable equal opportunity to submit a written statement in support of or challenging the outcome of the decision right so if one party files the appeal the other party then has an opportunity to also write something um in support or against whatever the appeal is um the appeal then uh must be a written decision so as part of the appeal process whoever is doing the appeal will read all the information um you don't do a full investigation again you're looking at those bases was there a procedur irregularity was there an appearance of a conflict of interest is there new evidence that we

082didn't know about that changes the outcome um you know those those bullet points that I just went over that's what you're looking at and you're going to look at the investigation everything in it you're going to look at the decision and you're going to look at those um op those written statements from the complainant and respondant for the appeal and then then you're going to issue a written decision um and give your rationale for why you either agree with the appeal or uh upheld the decision of the original uh decision maker and when you write that appeal decision it's going to go to each party uh simultaneously and their advisers if they have an adviser or an attorney and that's the end of the training anybody have any questions I know it's a lot of

083information um but well I thank you for your time well just one one quick question one question when a complaint come in when does the clock start to investigate so you're the know it starts when you have knowledge so that time frame has changed under the new RS right before it used to be when the district coordinator got it now it's when anybody in the district knows about the sex based harassment happening so whoever they make that complaint to so the complainant will tell somebody in the district that's what it comes from so there's nothing in 9 to say you know and you must start the investigation within 24 hours of receiving the complaint nothing like that in time no it the the standard is reasonably prompt time frames so there's no so it has

084to be reasonably prompt so if say a teacher hears about it and no one's done anything for 60 days and nothing came about it you could I guess you could get in trouble right because you're on knowledge that it happened and nobody told anybody and nobody did any investigation um and so OCR is going to look at what you did was it reasonable what you did as a district um um my guess would be telling one one person depending on the I mean it's Case by case right so it's very factual and Case by case um you know maybe telling one person if it's not that severe it wasn't pervasive and it was a one-time thing and you know um you didn't do anything maybe you'd be okay but if it was really severe and

085it's something that was pretty bad and no one told anybody and no one did an investigation you might get in trouble I think if there was an OCR complaint if someone came in and said we told someone and no one did anything um so what if what if someone had a complaint and a person that they had a complaint against actually went on moved out the district or cease employment right so that's why you would do that you would dismiss you can dismiss the complaint them so you just want to let if they move out out and you guys are dismissing the complaint and stopping your investigation then you just issue them a written notice that says the title n complaint is being dismissed because the respondent is no longer with the district okay that's

086a lot lot there yeah I don't have a question but thank you you got a lot of information in a quick time and very understandable so thank you okay thank you very much do we have a presentation no yes we do we do it's in the it's in the board okay thank you okay a lot of valuable information there all right moving on with the agenda number six administrative updates superintendent yeah just a couple things um you know we're moving along getting ready to uh open our doors uh in just a few weeks uh today actually we had a full day training we did it over actually at Mooney airport which was nice um we had it for all of our principles and administrators we did a training on um our teacher evaluation tools we're

087looking for um making sure that there's alignment consistency for all of our schools um as we go through the evaluation process so it was really well received today so we're excited to continue that training throughout the year and revisit that so that went well today and it was great actually to see everybody back everybody's excited about coming back and starting the new year we had a couple new faces at the tables uh our new principal at tala as well as our bridges assistant principal joined us um as well so that was um well received today and then also uh our buildings are moving along out there uh we've got a lot of construction and remodeling that's going on everything seems that it's U moving along at um the pace uh some of our buildings have

088had quite a transformation with some beautiful colors in the hallway uh Mr swales we're going to have you take a look at some of our buildings because I know the color was one that we wanted to talk about um we're going to do a building tour if anyone's available um I think I through up my FYI um I think it's next week uh we'll schedule some times if any of you are interested to Pal around and just see some of the buildings uh we'd love to have you come along um we're going to have you know hopefully get some pictures of them so you can see some of the buildings um so we're really pleased about the work that has been done and uh that's it for for this week okay that's the good news

089it was good news yeah okay and discussion policy yeah um just to bring this up to to your awareness and then uh Eric you can chime in wherever you need to but board F policy 5 uh 240 it was basically giving some update what's in green U on your sheet was just some added language it basically um just follows up with the suspension without pay this would be for any uh professional employees that um would give me the board or the superintendent uh May suspend professional employees without pay pending a dismissal hearing dis which would result in disciplinary consequences of up to 30 employment days so they just outlines those pieces as well I don't think I don't think the board that's just my opinion I don't think the board we don't discipline we just

090you know we agreed to the recommendation so that's what that get in some districts it's been that um the the superintendent can't um discipline without pay the board has to make that approval our policy allows me to do that this what it say we we we will the recommendation that come from the district right corre and we will agree or not agree but we don't read that again set the so uh creep Monon School District Board of Education or right superintendent May suspend a professional employee without pay so do we suspend it's the without pay but I think te I think technically they come to us with a recommendation and then we make a decision so ultimately I think we are making that decision we're not specifically setting that table but uh Dr Eric and

091and Dr Kagan are coming to us with their recommendation so yikes what this policy basically says that you are giving the authority to me to make that decision and I can do that well I think that's how it should be said it verbalized yes and that's what it is that that's that how it's been verbalized wait is that is that something you all agreed on last time or is that was that a change or was that always in do you want to add to that I don't think this was a change from one of us was it no no okay this was uh the recommendation from Mr Gleason on the situation that we've talked about in close session with an administrator last school year this is where this is coming from that our policy didn't

092have any teeth to enforce an unpaid suspension upon uh non on a contracted professional employee yes yes yes this is his his writing okay all right so I'm just making uh you aware of that and then the um there's further language on it that basically outlin the procedures that I would need to go through which would be to send a pre-suspension letter it allows them to um have five calendar days if they seek to have a hearing um and if they don't seek that within five days it's considered to be waved so this just basically outlines the new language like uh Dr Eric had said um that we've sort of talked about I think from last year so you can essentially suspend an employee without our concern is that you would be notified but it

093allows me the authority to do that I think that's how it's done now I don't think that's not how it's done now do do you need board approval for suspension I think an expulsion of a no this is just suspending them with with suspending them without pay for example five days if there was something but I'm just it's not terminating them do you need a board the board approval for that this is saying no it allows me to do that but in the past did you need board approval I don't think before with this change I I think what we had done before is I always would come and talk with you about that yeah just let us know there was no there was nothing in our policies to back that up regardless if she

094did it or we did it we tried and no so I think this is just putting a little B validity behind it because of our previous situation but we attempted to and because we had nothing in there we had no back no back up on that at all so and I still think the superintendent's going to bring it to us and notify us and we can table it and change it as we need but this is just putting in um the verbiage into our policies because right because previously we tried and we and it was absolute zero on that it was it was a bad deal yeah so there's any other questions or Eric is there anything else to add okay so I'm just bringing this to your attention that that change um based on

095our last it's a change right so if we decide we wanted to add the verbiage or have Mr gleon look at and say that all of this is pending a board approval I mean I don't know what the difference is whether it's yours or that right I mean I think that's what you guys are asking correct well for me I was just trying to be clear um to see if she had permission before to suspend without pay or if she always bought it she I'm sorry she the superintendent the position had per permission in the past to just suspend without pay or if the superintendent had to bring it to the board and we voted on it that's what I was trying to get understand I don't think we had any position whatsoever to do

096that it was practice that I always had though and and I guess I was trying to figure the advantage and disadvantage of of that I mean cuz I know some districts say that if you're going to suspend without pay you bring it to the board like you said and the board has to vote on it um and I was just trying to I was just thinking what's the advantage versus the disadvantage um and I'm sure verbage can be written in that way I mean I I think don't think one way or another matters to me as long as we have that opportunity because of what happened in the to suspend one way or another because of what happened I believe our policy allowed me to do it before but like I said um okay that

097that's all I was trying to understand yeah it's clearcut now yes it is so anyway so you bringing this to us next you'll vote on that next week for approval yes so that was just that and and then I think without any other questions we can move on to the uh tentative budget yeah Bravo business there's no other questions on the so Brian Johnson he has our um preliminary budget for review today evening everyone my name is Brian Johnson Director of Finance for the school district we're just going to talk through a draft version of our tenative fy2 budget this is substantially the same format of what we saw for a revised budget in June so it should be familiar to everyone if I'm moving too quickly just feel free to Slow Me Down ask

098questions at any time as an introduction again this is an annual procedure where we need to post notice of our budget hearing to be available to the public for inspection prior to our budget hearing our everything will be posted and available by this Friday August 9th we voted to have the public hearing on September 10th and then we will hold the meeting to adopt the budget on September 17th from there we just need to post the budget to the website and submit it to the State Board of Education next we're going to talk through some different R revenue and expenditure definitions sources of revenue property taxes that's our main source of Revenue people pay taxes taxes go to fund our schools other revenues are anything not classified Elsewhere on the list which is mostly donations

099field trips building level revenues that's fairly small state revenues that's our evidence-based funding some state grants Federal funding which we'll get into a little bit more later that's again mostly grant-based expenditures salaries and benefits that makes up over 70% of the district's annual expenses purchase Services is exactly what it says just Services provided where there's no physical inventory provided supplies and materials that's usable Goods um Capital outlay that's our expenses for our major assets buildings other objects is just things that don't qualify anywhere else non- Capital Equipment that's physical supplies over $500 and under $5,000 so we don't have to worry about depreciation of those termination benefits also so usually small but again if someone leaves the district and their contract deems they get some sort of termination benefit we have that in there our

100tax levy is the amount the district needs from property taxes and we go through the annual Levy process in December to request funds from the county our tax extension is the amount of money the County agrees to give us and then our debt limit as of June 30th our debt limit our debt liability is $125 million with principal just over $96 million owed so moving forward here again is the draft breakdown of our revenues and expenses for FY 25 this is all funds property taxes should go up some just through our annual Levy process we're able to Levy 5% in December of 23 State sources evidence-based funding is included there and then some state grants and then a big thing to point out is revenue from federal sources if you notice that is scheduled to

101decrease by a little over $5 million this is due to the Esser funding being done as of August 31st everything has to be expended so we will not get any more Sr funding and then expenditures again the same breakdown we just talked through salary benefits purchase Services Capital outlay that is a large deficit number that 18 million 780,000 which just to remind everyone that is part of our long-term capital projects plan we're still paying for projects that we funded through bonds issued in Prior years so that revenue is already in our bank it just doesn't show up here due to it being processed in a prior year moving on to our operating funds this is just our day-to-day expenses to educate students and run our schools pretty similar with the revenues again that Sr funding

102is going away our expenses are all you know they go up every year a big thing as we know Insurance the insurance committee agreed to go to a new broker insurance is going to go up a little over 10% I believe 11.2 something like that which that's a fairly large expense so I'm just pointing that out and then supplies and services everything's estimated to go up 3 to 5% depending on timing contracts inflation and so we are showing just under $500,000 of an estimated deficit right now there are still some final figures that we're unsure about which we should have a better handle on when we present again in September again we're just presenting these numbers for conversation to make sure there are no big surprises but we have been talking through efficiency plans and

103finding ways to you know get the people we currently have to pick up roles of people who are retiring increase efficiencies there and just you know we have great people who work here we can Broad in people's Horizons a little bit and help to bridge some of these gaps so then the next two charts are the charts that we showed on our June financials at the July board meeting we're just including them here again for conversation this is our our cash flow for last fiscal year this is all funds and then the next slide again this is the operating funds if you remember that dip in May that was we did a fund balance transfer so $20 million moved out of our operating funds to cover our capital projects but again this is something that

104we've seen the past couple months so we're just including it here we'll have the updated projections for fy2 just with this meeting being a little early the books aren't quite closed yet for July so next week we'll have some updated charts that we can share for further discussion and then as always we're going to end with our 2425 Department goals for business and operations a big thing is to complete our audit by August 15th we can always extend until December 15th every year if we need to our goal every year is to be done by October 15th we're in the second week of our audit right now everything's been progressing fairly straightforward no real surprises Auditors will be on site tomorrow to walk through some some final documentation and things so we should be good

105to hit that deadline so we'll work with them tomorrow to find the date that makes sense for them to come present their findings to you so that we can wrap things up to meet that October 15th deadline and then I know I mentioned this when we presented in June but a big project for the business team is to formalize our policies and procedures and training manuals we've already started our training we had training with principls and administrators in July we're meeting with office staff next week and with that so we have our agendas and things that we're training people on we're then going to build on that to make make more formal manuals frequently ask questions with links build out our website a little bit more just so people can operate and find the answers

106to their questions much more efficiently president Brown also brought up the need for a formal fraud prevention manual so we're adding that to our list we have again those policies and procedures in other areas we just want to have a more formal document so that if there is fraud someone can act quickly to respond to that rather than scrambling around to different documents um and again with the policies and procedures we want to have those training manuals for people outside of our department but then also those resources for inside our department staff are learning growing moving on we can have those documents so then our training and onboarding of new people can be much more smooth and it's just good practice not that we're comfortable in our cumulative system it's time to to get that

107finalized and then finally the facility planning and capital projects I know we talk about that fairly frequently we we do have larger projects coming up with our Athletics facilities our beautification projects are ongoing and that's something that we're forever looking at for preventative maintenance and just continuing to build and budget and make sure we're checking all those box so that again we're able to keep everything operating at an efficient manner moving forward so if there's any questions feel free if not that concludes my portion of the meeting a quick question yes U you mentioned that the insurance is going to go up about 10% yes and I I can't recall the secretary was that 10% going to be an increase across the board or that was the district was going to absorb those costs for

108insurance um that wasn't that that was no I don't think we're not absorbing them all I mean it's was it going to be passed over to the employees in some manner of so the overall policies are going to go up so the district's portion will increase and the employee side will as well okay okay great and and obviously I'm rhetorical question did we not know that the esa Esa funds was temporary right corre we cannot fund programs that we want to be sustainable right correct so and you are looking at temporary funds non sustainable funds out there to not support programs that we want to last right correct because that has got gotten us in trouble in the past we was hoping running programs with money grant money and things of that nature nature and

109only for the grant to be ceased and not under this Administration in the past right so but I heard you mentioned that's one of the money of loss of Revenue Source was no longer have any s funds correct okay and one other thing we've also been very fortunate with high interest rates we do have that Bond money that we can invest and gain interest on which again rates are likely going to start coming down so we had to be conservative with our estimates there because that's not by any means guaranteed Revenue either so those are the things Jason and I have been talking through I mean we've been meeting weekly daily monthly throughout this process and there are a lot of moving targets but we're doing our best to nail down everything we can to

110be as accurate as possible yeah and that was one of the things I had a federal reserve it was looking to lower interest rate next month but they might short cycle they might so I expect interest rates to be coming down given that being said the bonds that we have borrow I can't recall are those bonds callable can we refinance those bonds if the position you know if it lends itself to be advantageous to us are we in a position to say hey would we sold these bonds at 5% for example interest rates going to come come down we might nail it at 3% can we do we have an opportunity are all the bonds we sold I can't recall again are they non-callable or are they callable you don't have to answer if you

111don't know the answer right now right and that's something where PMA is great with working with us and you know they monitor that much more closely than we do and they're very good with helping us with those types of strategies and when the opportunity comes up we'll be ready if it is available okay and the last thing if you can get board as soon as you could without really stressing yourself out kind of a 5year forecast sure we haven't seen one of those in a while we actually spoke about that today okay I met with um our adviser at forecast 5 and we've definitely looked at that in the past it's just finding where to click in the system and mess around with different projections and things and refamiliarizing but once this budget's done that's

112on our list to make sure that we have that for you okay and I believe this is again this what we're seeing here a little less than $500,000 deficit budget I believe we're going to have the opportunity to amend the budget and I believe we're going to come into Surplus and I as a stand this is going to affect our financial store uh score state so but I think we're going to come up with a surplus and we'll be okay okay thank you all right thank you no further questions from any other board member no I just want to make clear though because sometimes I'm not so quick on my feet you know the district pays for a single HMO um amount for for the um for the staff you know so we'll pay whatever

113that amount is for a single HMO we pay so we have to absorb that but then if somebody has a family plan if they have the PO or whatever then they are paying more too so the district is not going to pay at all but we do we do have portion of okay yeah so sorry space it out and then you ask me a question like oh I need to think I came out of my back pocket with that one so no no worries okay thank you Brian thank you Brian all righty okay who's next up we got Jason Jason will take on number two under settlement of tax business yeah okay Jason good evening president Brown uh distinguished members of the Board of Education Dr Kagan um yes I'm here to uh open discussion

114regarding uh tax settlement or a settlement to tax rate objections that was brought to the attention of the district in the spring um each year when we go and Levy uh as we Brian alluded to we previously uh levied for 2023 um there are particular law firms out there that monitor uh the fund balances in uh of school districts and if you accumulate an excessive fund balance and specific funds um where it opens the districts and makes them subject to uh a rebate or not I wouldn't shouldn't say a rebate excuse me but for them to object the levy and to seek um some of that money back so the particular funds that we have experienced that with it happens over a three-year period keep in mind we're talking about tax levies from 2020 2021

115and 2020 um those specific funds excuse me for a second as I just grab my notes but in 2020 it was the transportation fund um 2021 was the 50 fund which is imrf Social Security and Medicaid and then also in 2023 I mean 2022 it was the same 50 fund imrf Social Security and Medicare paid um the original amount that was being sought from the district was 774584975 um to put this matter to bed for those years that we are being objected to um part of the stipulation was that they withdrew the uh tax rate objection from the 40 fund from 2020 um and then will'll settle out of the imrf Social Security and Medicaid fund which is our 50 fund so the amount that uh Mr ISO has negotiated would come out of the

116fund balance in that particular fund uh took Brian's financial report that was um ended for fiscal year 24 and we were projecting to have a balance of 5,798 846 in that fund at the end of fiscal year 24 so we do have the funds available to settle this matter um going forward how we're going to monitor this situation um Mr ISO uh presented Brian and I with the Miller ratio which has three specific steps that we've actually started to build out to the applicable funds um when we Levy and when we prepare the budget each subsequent year we're going to calculate the Miller ratio for each one of those funds and adjust our Levy accordingly um for example uh if it's looking as if we are running a surplus again in the 50 fund what

117we would then do is we would divert those funds when we lovey from the 50 fund maybe run a deficit on paper from that fund and uh allocate those funds that you know we wanted to capture for the 50 fund into the 10 fund um another option that we have to avoid this problem is if we do have funds with sufficient fund balances it's recommend that we conduct a transfer uh an allowable transfer I should say from said fund to another fund that does not have an excessive fund balance um unfortunately for us the fund the 50 fund you're not allowed to transfer in and transfer out of to uh into or out of so the amount that's built up as an excessive fund balance over the years um we have no ability to transfer

118that to our 10 fund which is education fund 20 fund which is onm or Debt Service Transportation or any of our other eight funds um I threw a lot at you so um I will definitely open this up to questions um that you may have so so the negotiation for for the money that the district is looking to give to is a group of lawyers it's a law firm representing specific very similar to what you would say so where's the money going it's going to a law firm that would then disperse the fund funds to the individuals that have been contacted by this law firm and the law firm reached out very similar to a class action law suit but this is our district though that supposedly we over living our district correct so and

119in in in in specific funds the Miller ratio should have been taken into consideration when we you know finalize the levy cuz we present in December each year you guys pack pass the levy that Levy is then those documents are sent to Will County at some point in the spring generally around late March early April they send us a sheet to revise the levy we could shift funds as we see fit um and those funds were not moved around in the past which led to the excess accumulation in the 50 fund and at the time the 40 fund okay and just one clarification this group of lawyers out there that's looking into this they're not only coming after school districts when I was on a Township they came after the township so it's government government

120entities yes sir government entities and I I can't recall I talked to Dr car on this I can't recall how we end up settling and I I didn't think it was a big monetary amount but this seemed like this is a big this is a big amount they're seeking 700,000 but we kind of yeah 774 to be honest with you and when we and then at the end of the day we we said maybe 250,000 or whatever 200 plus, 225,000 is the agreed upon amount um when we met with Mr ISO in the spring I believe it was in May um he did not believe that we had a strong case to object and continue to fight these and incur legal fees so that's where he suggested um looking to settle with the opposing councel

121so are you looking for us to vote on that tonight no sir I've uh put this up on agenda um as committee hold week yes and then I have the verbiage from Mr ISO to make it an action item next week okay I I if you don't mind I'd like to get back to you just to see what our supervisor at the township did I can't recall that was 10 12 13 years ago that that happened to us in the township and I I'll get back so yeah you can move forward as planned but I'll try to get some more information on how we how we handle this situation okay okay cuz I thought it was kind of we was okay kind of like what you're coming up with a corrective Action Moving money and

122placing it here I thought we we was hit with over living x amount of dollars Surplus but we was able to moving forward created another kind of a capital expense def category and taking money and putting it into that so we wouldn't be hit again it was something like that but I'll find out more details tomorrow yeah I I look forward to hearing from that and um like I said the the one uh and from school Finance we do have nine separate funds um those funds do have regulations as to which ones you can transfer into without a fund the the 50 fund is one that you cannot transfer into or out of that sounds like kind of a the corrective action we did but I'm not sure how much we settled but yeah and

123it's nothing personal this is a shark group out there they look at it every year throughout wherever area they are and see who over levied and this is the result they try to get a hit here and there and we got hit so okay all right so this is going to be on agenda to approve the payout of 200 some, 220 $5,000 from the from the 50 fund yes that would be on next week's agenda okay all right any further questions [Applause] Jason okay thank you thank you everyone all right you appreciate it all right all right moving moving forward ahead with the agenda can I have a motion can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move move by Dr Hall second by Bill second second by Bill so is there

124anything we want to pull out before we okay if not Is there further discussion on the consent agenda well I guess I did have we we're saying to approve a contract but are we supposed to see that contract yeah I'm a little it's not I didn't see it yeah I don't I don't see I see a contract in it was it in I think the electronically I didn't see it I think it was it's in the who it's it's in the extra wait where's where's the extra sure and also I'm a little I'm a little confused on this do we approve it's asking do we approve each item do we vote on each item or do we disapprove you see what I'm saying as a consent agenda but it has usually we yeah is that

125typically we do it yeah I see no just both of them it says approve personel report and a motion and a motion and then you motion for each one of these but now we're just saying approve agenda approval okay huh yeah I would I would think it'll be each one of these the second item oh I see yeah cuz you got to approve this approve this approve this yeah okay we don't have any questions just just for clarity we are approving instead of each individual item under Personnel those two items there and under the teacher and learning those three items there for approval we're going to Encompass the whole typically as a consent agenda approval to capture all of those those five individual items so everybody clear on that as usually we we approve the

126consent agenda everything that falls up under there I didn't think we had different items I have to go back and look under the consent agenda that requires certain individual approval on an action item line item if that makes sense but anyway there's a motion out there to approve the consent agenda which Encompass seven Alpha and bravvo in its entirety and no further questions or any comments everybody saw what they was looking for as far as the contract for the rooc position any comments on that if not Madam Secretary roll call please okay um Mr swales I miss site stumbris I group isn't I Dr Hall I president Brown I motion carry do we have any old business um I um Nelson and I were contacted to see if we were remaining on our same committees

127for like safety with Mr Tobias and I just wanted to make sure that because you assigned those committees last year I just want to make sure that it was cool that I still went to them yeah okay oh yeah I would never fire you okay well I just wanted to make sure so I will respond that I can be there but I wanted your permission matter fact you got a promotion no you're all good okay any other old business new business I just have one item under new business to let you know so the the athletic boosters are are wanting to do fireworks again and they asked me to get I got a contract but I got it yesterday which was late to get in there so I gave all the paperwork to uh um

128Miss Highline and she'll include it in the board packet for you to to look at it's exactly the same thing I think we've been doing it for 12 years so I'm just letting you guys know that I did give her the paperwork to put in there for approval next week for Tuesday and then once and I think it's September 20th I think is what's on there that's when homecoming is did you add my cut so um I'm just doing getting the paperwork together for them and uh the athletic boosters are taking care of all of it but I'm just submitting all the paperwork because I haven't been for 12 years but I want to let you know I would have normally got it a little quicker but they they're busy so I got it yesterday

129I'll never fire you either Bill we're all good all right okay so that I do I do okay any other new business if not we do have a reason to go into close session or reasons and the reason is the setting of a price for sale or lease of property owned by the public public body five Illinois Capal Statute 120/2 in parentheses C is in Charlie and parentheses the number six in addition to self- evaluation practices and procedures or or professional ethics when meeting with a representative of a Statewide Association of which the public body is a member and that's coming from five Illinois compile statute 1202 C in parentheses C is in Charlie and 16 in parentheses as well can I have a motion to go into close session session for those reasons stated

130so moved second moved by Jamie second by Dr Hall any questions or comments if not roll call please okay Miss rup is and I Mr s hi Miss stumbris I Dr Hall hi president Brown I motion carry we should be in close session anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes and there will no will not be any further action conducted thank you public for joining and everyone here for joining us today have a good evening be safe and God bless